Daily stories of Pennsylvania

by Frederic Antes Godcharles

A large and threatening mob surrounded the House of Assembly, placed the dead bodies of their neighbors in the doorway and demanded immediate relief for the people of the frontiers. Such indeed were the desperate measures resorted to in their effort to obtain better defense.

One of the results of these demonstrative measures and the protests of the people was the erection of a chain of forts and block-houses. These were designed to guard against the Indian incursions and were erected by the Province, at a cost of £85,000.

This chain extended from along the Kittatinny Hills, near where Stroudsburg now stands, southeasterly through the Province, to the Maryland line. They were constructed at the important passes of the mountains and at important places, almost equi-distant, so that they would the better serve as havens of refuge when attacked suddenly.

These forts were garrisoned by troops in the pay of the Province, twenty to seventy-five men always under the command of a commissioned officer. Even the Moravians at Bethlehem cheerfully fortified their town and took up arms in self-defense.

Benjamin Franklin and James Hamilton were selected to repair to the forks of the Delaware and raise troops for the execution of the plan. They arrived at Easton, December 29, and appointed William Parsons to be major of the troops to be raised in Northampton County.

In the meantime Captain Hays, with his company from the Irish Settlement, in that county, had been ordered to New Gnadenhutten, which had recently been the scene of an Indian raid, in which they applied the torch, many being burned to death and others escaped to Bethlehem in their nightclothes in the cold winter air.

The troops erected a temporary stockade and a garrison was placed there to guard the Brethren’s mills, which were filled with grain, and to protect the few settlers who had the hardihood to return and again settle there.

Captain Hay’s detachment was attacked on New Year’s Day, 1756, while some of the troops were amusing themselves skating on the ice of the river, near the stockade. They noticed some Indians in the distance and thinking it an easy matter to capture or kill them the soldiers gave chase, and rapidly gained on these Indians, who proved to be decoys skilfully maneuvering to draw the untrained Indian fighters into an ambuscade.

After the troops had gone some distance a party of Indians rushed out behind them, cut off their retreat and, falling upon them with great fury, as well as with the advantage of surprise and superior numbers, quickly dispatched them. Some of the soldiers, remaining in the stockade, filled with terror by the murder of their comrades, deserted, and the few remaining thinking themselves incapable of defending the place, withdrew.

The savages then seized upon such property as they could use and set fire to the stockade, the Indians’ houses and the Brethren’s mills. Seven farm houses between Gnadenhutten and Nazareth were burned by those same Indians, who also murdered such of the people as they discovered.